


Taking the Credit

by Unsentimentalf



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-11
Updated: 2015-10-11
Packaged: 2018-04-25 21:43:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4977601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unsentimentalf/pseuds/Unsentimentalf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stealing the bank's money is just the first step.  Kerr Avon won't have succeeded until he has got out of the Federation with the funds and himself intact. Of course he has a plan for that, but even the best plan is susceptible to random factors and one of those is about to come knocking on his door...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taking the Credit

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was originally published in the zine ['Pride and Prejudice'](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Pride_and_Prejudice_\(Blake%27s_7_zine\)) (ed. Aralias, 2015). You can read other fics from this zine by searching [the collection](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/PrideandPrejudice). You can also purchase your very own copy of the zine by contacting the publisher.

_T + 1 hour_

It had worked. He had done it.

Kerr Avon looked again at the statement on the screen. A name he’d never seen before in his life, a deposit of something in the region of half his annual salary. It didn’t look like much but he knew about the iceberg. He’d created the iceberg.

The dice lay scattered next to the console: the random number for the account to check. If there was money in this one, there would be money in all twenty three hundred and seventy two other accounts in invented names scattered over fifty nine planets, and every credit of it was now his. 

Avon wished briefly that there was someone he could tell. It didn’t matter who, just someone. There wasn’t anyone, of course. He hadn’t been foolish enough to allow any complications, not while the stakes were so high. A couple of months and he’d be out of here, high and dry, and the whole galaxy could know who he was and what he’d done but for now it was just him.

He closed the account statement, erased all records of his query. This account and the thousands of others would be safest unaccessed, the money no temptation to do anything out of the ordinary and draw attention to himself. Avon didn’t even pour himself a celebratory drink. Instead he went to bed. He had work tomorrow, after all, and it was likely to be a busy day.

_T +2 days 6 hours_

It was still a couple of hours before yet another dawn when Avon got back to his apartment. He stripped off the clothes he’d been wearing for far too long and stumbled into the shower. They’d arranged for food to be delivered but eventually he’d got too tired to face eating anything. His boss had sent them all home in the end when it became clear that none of them were going to be worth anything more to the investigation without rest. Now he was off shift for twelve hours. He’d have something when he woke up, before he went back.

Avon rubbed tiredly at his eyes, the water streaming down between his fingers. Nothing – they’d got nothing yet. The biggest theft the Galaxy had ever experienced, every decent security specialist called in from across the solar system and they hadn’t yet got past his first lines of defence. They would. That was why he’d set up the next layer. Instead of staring at blank screens they’d soon be chasing a hundred shadows. All he needed to do now was to do his job and do it as well as anyone could expect. The things that other people knew he knew how to do wouldn’t break his own program’s defences. He could even afford a few inspirational ideas; he did have a certain reputation for brilliance to uphold.

_T + 2 days 11 hours_

The alarm dragged him out of deep sleep. “Off,” Avon said without opening his eyes. The noise continued. “OFF!” he snapped again, then realised it was the doorbell. For a moment his heart raced. Stupid, he told himself. He was part of an investigation into the biggest bank robbery ever. There were a hundred reasons why someone should arrive on his doorstep. Wrapping a dressing gown around his shoulders he went to answer it.

The man outside was vaguely familiar in the way of politicians and vid stars, though he was dressed in scruffy Alpha working clothes. He looked worried, but when the door opened he smiled warmly as if he were delighted to see Avon’s face. Avon resisted the temptation to step backwards out of the range of that unnerving expression

“What do you want?”

“You’re Kerr Avon? You don’t know me- my name’s Roj Blake.”

Fuck. What the hell was this man of all people doing at his door? 

Avon realised he was staring. “Why shouldn’t I know you? I watch the vids occasionally. What do you want?” he said again.

Blake looked rather confused. “I’m sorry? I need your help. I can pay. In a manner of speaking, anyway.” His smile was hopeful this time.

Avon wanted to slam the door but things were a bit late for that now. He couldn’t think of an innocent reason for it. He carefully didn’t glance at the camera in the hallway. “You’d better come in.”

Blake looked round the sparsely furnished apartment. “This is …nice?” he ventured.

“What do you want from me, Blake?”

His visitor sat down in a rather casual manner on Avon’s sofa. “Someone’s accidentally put rather a large amount of money in my bank account, The branch staff tried to trace the depositor but the information wasn’t on their system. They said it would take a specialist. So I looked up research papers by financial security specialists living in this Dome and I found you. ”

Avon frowned. His name and address shouldn’t be accessible to the general public. Blake must have really done some digging. More competent than he appeared, it seemed. Yet for some reason he wanted to return the money, which seemed rather more like the action of an idiot.

Avon sighed, trying to sound as if the matter was too trivial to be bothered with. “Errors happen. The bank will sort it out eventually.” 

“I don’t think waiting for that is a good idea,” Blake told him. “You see, when I got back from the bank I found Federation investigators in my apartment. I’ve got…well, memory issues. I can’t necessarily account for everything I’ve done recently. It’s not illegal to forget things but I don’t think investigators look kindly on it. 

“And why should I help?”

“I haven’t got much of my own, but I’m sure the owner of the money will be generous on its safe return. You could ask them for a cut.”

Avon paced up and down, contemplating Blake’s open features. “Never mind memory issues, I’d worry more about your general stupidity.” How had this man nearly led a revolution?

“What do you mean?”

“How long since the transfer?”

“Nearly three days, though I only found out about it yesterday afternoon.”

“Someone’s had thirty thousand credits missing in the bank system for three days. Don’t you think they would be kicking up a fuss by now?”

Blake scowled at him. It was only slightly less intimidating than the smile. “Are you accusing me of lying?”

No, Avon was certain Blake wasn’t lying. “I’m saying that I very much doubt that this money’s original owner is going to turn out to be one of the nice guys. He might be more interested in silencing anyone who knows about it than paying them off.”

This thought clearly hadn’t occurred to Blake. To give him credit, he did think about it for some time. Avon made himself coffee because he was still barely awake. As an afterthought he made a second mug and shoved it at his unwelcome visitor.

“You’d be better off buying ship’s passage and moving out of the Federation before he catches up with you,” he told Blake. It was what he’d expected the man to do. Thirty thousand credits was enough to start a moderately comfortable new life somewhere.

The best thing Avon could do at this point was to turn Blake in, obviously. Call security as soon as he could, claim he’d been interrogating his unexpected guest in connection with the bank investigation and hope no-one drew any conclusions other than serendipity for Blake’s arrival at his door. The man’s desire to return the money was a bit of a sticking point but Avon could suggest that he’d clearly developed cold feet.

Blake sipped the coffee and his eyes widened slightly. Avon could see his lips move. Then he made a face.

“All right if I put a bit of sugar in this?”

“Be my guest,” Avon said without any attempt at sincerity. “Second cupboard on the left.”

Blake went into the kitchen. Avon heard the cupboard close, then a couple of drawers open – looking for something to stir it with, no doubt. He moved towards his communicator. He only needed a moment... 

“Avon?” Blake called. Avon sighed and walked into the kitchen. Blake was looking grim and holding the largest of Avon’s sharp knives in a rather businesslike manner. It occurred to Avon that he had just let a terrorist wander round his flat unobserved. Idiot, he chastised himself.

“What are you doing?” he asked, as calmly as he could under the circumstances.

“Don't worry. I don’t have any intention of attacking you,” Blake told him. “I just don’t want you to overreact to my next question.

Avon held himself very still. “Which is?”

“How did you know it was thirty thousand credits?”

“You told me.”

“No I didn’t.”

“You did,” Avon insisted. “When you first arrived. You said that thirty thousand credits had turned up in your bank account. Are your memory problems really that bad?”

“No they aren’t,” Blake said, but Avon thought he looked slightly unsure of himself. He pushed his advantage.

“If you’re too unstable and paranoid to trust me then I certainly can’t help you. Put the knife down. Better still, put it away exactly where you found it.”

Blake paused for a moment then sighed and returned the knife to the drawer. “I’m sorry,” he told Avon. “but I was sure I hadn’t mentioned … Never mind. I would like to trust you. I really don’t have anywhere else to go.”

That struck Avon as unlikely. Blake was clearly the aggravatingly popular type. “Don’t men like you have friends and lovers all over the place?”

“Men like me?” Blake tilted his head. “What exactly… Never mind.” He said again. “No. I won’t drag any of my friends into trouble with the law. They- we are just ordinary people..”

“I must have misheard you. I thought you said you were Roj Blake.”

“That’s me, yes. I’m a systems engineer over in Third Sector.” Blake fished a battered ID card out of his pocket and offered it to Avon. “Moved here about eighteen months ago. I’ve had no problems until now.”

Avon took the card and turned it over in his hand. He felt as if he was missing something. Two years ago Roj Blake had been on very public trial for sedition in one of the other domes. He’d led something called, with depressing literalness, the Freedom Party. Avon hadn’t taken much notice at the time: rabble rousers weren’t a particularly interesting class of criminals from his perspective. When he’d set up a program to search for likely beneficiaries for his donations he'd been surprised when Blake’s name had come up. The man had been released early and moved here. Friends in high places, Avon had assumed, which made him a particularly useful candidate for fouling Avon’s trail, but just one of many such candidates.

If Blake wanted to hide his past that was understandable, but did the man really think he could do it using the same name and face? Avon handed the card back to him. Intimidation and violence, the courts had said, and holding that knife Blake had looked easily capable of both. Avon would need to be careful.

He glanced at the timepiece- still three hours until he needed to leave for work. “Sit down there,” he gestured at his least comfortable chair, “and give me the details. I don’t promise anything.”

“Thank you.” There was that smile again. Avon felt a ludicrous temptation to smile back. He resisted it. Instead he picked up the coffee he'd abandoned earlier and tried to look at least slightly interested in the story and not at all interested in the history of the man doing the telling. 

_T + 2 days 13 hours_

“Sexual partners?”

“A bit thin on the ground recently,” Blake said. “Certainly nothing serious.”

“Women? Men? Either?”

Blake looked slightly taken aback. “Men. Is that relevant to my bank account?”

Not in the slightest, but Avon had thought that he ought to at least sound like he cared about investigating the mysterious deposit and he’d been curious.

“Relationships tend to have quite a strong influence on bank accounts.”

“Not mine,” Blake told him. “I’m certainly not desperate enough to pay for sex, and there’s been no-one I liked enough since I moved here to blow my savings on him”

“No unsuitable partners, bad break ups, festering resentments? Anything like that?”

Blake laughed. “Not since I was seventeen, no. Do you need to hear about all my youthful indiscretions?”

Avon thought of the trial. There was something very strange about Blake's apparently casual attitude to his past. “No, thank you.”

“And what about you, Avon? Or should I call you Kerr?”

“No you shouldn’t. What about me?”

“I’m guessing that you prefer men as well.”

“Why would you think that?” Avon really did not like his personal life coming under examination. He felt himself bristling.

“Because you looked rather pleased at my answer.” Blake didn’t seem to be able to tone down that damn smile.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Avon told him. “I need to go to work shortly. Why don’t you go away now and I’ll contact you if I find out anything.”

Blake sighed. “I’m fairly sure that going back to my flat is not a good idea. I barely got away without being noticed last time.”

“Find someone else to go, then.”

“Or I could just stay here.”

“In my flat?” Avon was genuinely startled. “No you couldn’t.”

“If I start wandering around the streets, Security will pick me up,” Blake argued. “And if they do, I imagine they’ll trace my steps straight back here. You don’t want to be bothered with answering their questions, do you?”

Avon was struggling to get a handle on Roj Blake. Most of the time the man sat there seeming worried but good tempered and occasionally irritatingly naïve, but every so often he dropped into the conversation something that was quite obviously as much of a threat as the knife had been. It was clear that Avon needed to get rid of him as soon as possible. And equally clear he couldn’t get rid of him yet. At least this way he could tell the Security Services exactly where to find the ex-terrorist.

“Stay here then,” he said irritably, “if you really want to, but I have absolutely no idea when I’ll be back and there isn’t any food in the place.”

“I’m sure I’ll survive.” Blake shifted, uninvited, back to the comfort of the sofa and watched Avon get ready for work.

As Avon was on the landing, about to close the front door behind him, he heard Blake speak once more, quietly enough that any neighbours wouldn’t hear his voice. “And just in case you were thinking of talking to anyone about me, Avon - you should know your address wasn’t the only piece of information about you that I managed to find. Have a good day at work.”

Avon looked back at the closing door. He took the stairs, stopped halfway down, checked that no-one was coming then slid a hidden panel aside. He carried a small probe for checking wiring on him at all times, and now he pressed it swiftly up against several points inside the panel before he closed it and carried on downstairs. The Federation Security hardware contract was held by a cousin of the Minister. Components were frequently substandard and no-one would be surprised that the building’s entire surveillance footage for the last day or so had become corrupted. There would be no record of Blake’s arrival, which gave Avon a slightly freer hand.

Avon spent most of the short journey to the bank trying to convince himself that Blake had to be bluffing. What could he have, after all? Avon had spent years staying absolutely clean, politically and legally. No-one could possibly know about his operation, and yet Blake had turned up at his door when that ought to be nearly impossible. 

By the time he got there he was ninety-five per cent sure that it was a bluff. He walked into his office, glanced at the urgent messages, put his hand out to the communicator to call Federation security, and drew it away again without pressing any buttons. Five percent was far, far higher than any risk he’d taken so far. He was going to have to do better than that.

Throughout the day Avon’s program held firm at the ‘blank screen’ level of defence. He felt quite pleased with that – he’d expected it to last forty-eight hours and here they were into day three. There was talk of arrests, of petty criminals spending money like water, Federation security rounding them up and starting the interrogations but very little hard information on the Fed operation came back to the bank.

_T + 2 days 19 hours_

Around mid-afternoon Avon decided to be seen to make some progress. He did his best to explain what he intended doing to the technically illiterate Chief Manager and the Board.

“This probe doesn’t interact with the rogue program. Instead it bypasses several of our own high-level security protocols and interrogates all our client accounts. Accounts with any significant irregular deposits without traceable sources will be flagged up.”

“And this will find where the money’s gone?” The CM sounded desperate for him to say yes.

Avon shrugged. “If any of the money has been deposited in accounts held in this bank, it has a chance of finding that. But there’s a very powerful rogue program in our system – I can’t guarantee that anything will do what it’s designed to do at the moment.”

“Is it legal?” someone asked. “I thought we guaranteed absolute confidentiality for all customers?”

“Ask the legal department if you really want to know. That’s not my area.”

They debated for a while as he waited outside the board room, but soon enough he was called back.

“You may go ahead,” the Chief Manager told him. “Report back as soon as you have any results.”

With pleasure, Avon thought. He returned to his office to set up the probe. It would take nearly eighteen hours to run – he could have devised a way of bypassing the security protocols just once but it had suited him to make it time consuming so the program had to work its way past multiple defences, some of which he himself had devised, every time it accessed an account.

Once it was running he had a wander around to check on what his colleagues were doing. Nothing to worry about there. It was while waiting for the coffee machine that he heard Blake’s name mentioned for the first time.

“It's a terrorist attack,” a young woman was earnestly telling her companion. “Roj Blake and the Freedom Party – they’re the ones behind it. Security have got orders to take everyone connected with the FP in, dead or alive.”

Avon was tempted to point out that the heist was well beyond the capabilities of someone like Blake, but he kept quiet. The rumour of Blake's involvement seemed to be spreading like wildfire – he’d heard snippets of variants on it three more times before he got back to his desk.

It was far too late now to turn Blake in, unless he managed to make it look as though they hadn’t met that morning, and Blake under truth drug could give evidence otherwise. The man was turning out to be a thoroughly annoying fly in the ointment of what had been a soothingly flawless operation. Now Avon definitely couldn’t afford to let Blake wander out and get arrested. He excused himself from work, pointing out that his program would be doing nothing but running overnight and he would rather be awake when he was needed than right now, and went home.

_T + 2 days 22 hours_

There was no-one in Avon’s living room, nor in the kitchen, and for a horrible moment he thought that Blake had gone, but when he checked the bedroom he found Blake fast asleep in his bed. Naked, he couldn’t help but noticing, and tangled in his previously clean sheets.

“Get up.”

Blake opened his eyes, stretched and, inevitably, smiled. “Back again? Found out anything?”

“I’ve found out something you’ll definitely want to hear. What are you doing in my bed, anyway?”

“Waiting for you.” The meaning of that smile was unmistakeable. Avon glowered, or at least he hoped that he did.

“You’re here for my help, nothing else.”

“I do need your help. ” Blake hitched himself up on his elbows. “I also find you rather attractive, oddly enough. Is there any good reason why we can’t take half an hour off to relax?”

Avon resisted the temptation to moisten his lips. This was not useful at all. “Firstly,” he told the man, “I don’t like people throwing themselves at me. Secondly, I’m very busy and it would take a great deal longer than half an hour. And thirdly–” He paused.

“Thirdly?” Blake prompted.

“Thirdly, when you hear my news I really don’t think sex is going to be top of your agenda any more.”

Blake nodded. “That’s all right then. Good.”

“What? Why?”

“I thought perhaps one of your reasons might be that you didn’t want to fuck me. I’m pleased to find it isn’t. We can work round the others.”

“Try working round this!” Avon snapped, annoyed. “You and your Freedom Party are being accused of the biggest bank theft in history. They’re rounding up anyone who ever knew you right now.”

He had expected Blake to look scared, or triumphant. He hadn’t been sure which. The look of complete confusion startled him. “My what?”

“Don’t play games. I’ve known who you are and what you did from the start. You did know that they televised your trial?”

“My what?” Blake said again. “But I’ve never been on trial! I’ve heard of the Freedom Party, of course, but I’ve never met anyone who’s in it. Who do you think I am?”

“Roj Blake.” Avon told him. He was starting to get seriously worried. Blake’s bafflement seemed genuine, which made no sense at all. Unless…

“It’s a common enough name,” Blake said.

“No, it was you. Your picture was everywhere.” Avon’s voice dropped a little. “You must have been mindwiped.” Just the thought of mindwipe made him feel nauseous. This man had actually been through it…

“No.” Blake said. “I can’t… I’d know.”

“Memory problems, you told me.” Lack of sleep must be why Avon felt so shaky. Not the thought that they might do it to him, if he got caught.

Blake rolled over, buried his face in Avon’s pillow. Avon stood there and watched the muscles in his naked back stand taut, tried not to think about the rest of that body under the sheet. After a minute or so Blake rolled back again. His face was expressionless but his eyes burned. “Tell me who I was and what I did.”

Avon picked up his handheld console, dropped it on the bed. “Look yourself up. I’m going to make coffee.”

He gave Blake fifteen minutes, keeping an ear out for any sound from the bedroom. He’d switched the console to stealth mode – Blake wouldn’t be able to send any messages out, so it was safe to leave him. After that time he brought two coffees in.

“Do you actually take sugar?”

“No,” Blake said, without raising his eyes from the screen.

“I thought not. Here.” He sat down on the edge of the bed and leaned over to see what Blake was reading. The gossip sheets. Interesting. 

“Do you know anything else? Anything that isn’t in the public record?” Blake demanded. 

“No,” Avon told him. “I wasn’t particularly interested at the time,”

“I don’t understand why I did this,” Blake said. “Why… living in the Federation isn’t that bad. Is it?”

Avon shrugged. “Don’t ask me. Terrorism isn’t my crime of choice.”

“I know what is, though.” Blake suddenly looked more relaxed. “You’re the thief.” He put down the console to take his coffee.

“I don’t know–”

“–what I’m talking about. Of course not. But when you walked in here tonight you thought I was Roj Blake the freedom fighter, leader of the Freedom Party, and yet you didn’t for one moment think, like all this lot…” he gestured at the console, “that I had anything to do with the bank heist. Everyone else thinks I’m involved – why don’t you?”

“Obvious lack of competence?” Avon suggested.

“According to what I’ve read, the Freedom Party was rumoured to have people everywhere. Why not in banking? No, Avon. You knew I wasn’t behind it because you knew who was. You.”

“Ludicrous,” Avon told him, trying to sound calm.

“I’ve read your resume and your job description,” Blake told him. “You have the skillset. You have the access to the bank computers. And you have a really guilty conscience.”

“Why would you think that?” This conversation really wasn’t going well for Avon.

“You were going to turn me in to Security this morning until I told you I knew your secret.”

“You didn’t know anything,” Avon said, annoyed.

“I knew that a man who keeps everything in his life as impersonal as this flat was either completely unimaginative or determined to keep his secrets at all cost. I don’t think you’re unimaginative at all, Kerr Avon, far from it. I do think that you knew the precise amount that turned up in my bank account before I told you because you put it there and I’m rather interested in why you picked on me to frame.”

It was an odd feeling, to have someone else know. Nervewracking but not entirely unpleasant. “You have no evidence at all,” Avon said.

“I don’t need evidence. I’m not going to tell anyone. I’m just curious. Why me?”

“Not just you,” Avon told him. “Anyone who might give the security services a headache, plus a few names at random. It cost me a great deal but it was necessary."

"They must suspect you, surely?"

"Of course they do. They suspect anyone who's ever had access to the system, and particularly anyone competent. They'll be monitoring my bank account, my spending patterns, all my mail, where I go and who I talk to. It won't do them any good. I have done, and will do, absolutely nothing suspicious. "

"Until they raid your flat and find their number-one suspect in your bed."

Avon hadn't overlooked the possibility. "This place was searched down to the molecular level on day one, while I was at the bank being interrogated. They are unlikely to come back unless I give them a reason." 

"Unlikely doesn’t sound entirely reassuring." Blake told him.

"Then I suggest that you get out of the bed." 

"What, now? How about in half an hour, give or take?"

Avon sighed. Blake really wasn't getting this. "You've just found out that the government have fried your brain. Don't you care?" 

"More than you can possibly imagine." Blake told him, briefly serious. "Everything about my life outside this bed is quite possibly a lie created to use and control me, but right at the moment I can't think of anything practical to do about it. So I may as well hook up with the only person I know who might actually have managed to screw the system. Besides," and he grinned again, "we both want to." 

"Sleeping with you won't make me your ally. I have my own concerns right now. Is this is how you normally recruit people?"

"I don't know but somehow I doubt it. You may be surprised to know that I'm usually remarkably choosy." Blake was sitting back against the head of the bed, the sheet loosely pulled up around his hips. Avon could see enough of an outline to know that Blake's interest was definitely genuine. 

He snorted. "They say there's no aphrodisiac like wealth. Clearly they're right." 

"Cynic," Blake said. "I really don't care how much money you've got. I've got thirty thousand credits more than I want already. How much is the whole sum, anyway? The news reports keep changing their mind. "

Avon flashed a quick grimace at him. "Enough to get me laid, clearly." And Blake wasn't getting a single credit more of it. That thought was enough to make the idea of sex more attractive. "What exactly are you offering to do for my money?" 

Blake laughed. "For your money, nothing. For you..." He patted the bed beside him. "If you come and join me, I'll take your clothes off, and see if I can't find something to please you in the process." 

That sounded a little too passive for Avon's current mood. He tugged the sheet off the bed instead and took a look. Not bad. Good enough to have him step back out of the other man's reach and start to strip his own clothes off. Blake made a hasty grab as he moved which missed then settled back to watch, apparently still amused. 

Avon wasn’t entirely convinced about the whole thing until he slid onto the bed and Blake kissed him, hands roaming everywhere. Then he gave up his doubts and went for it.

The analytical part of his brain turned back online on only some time later during the sudden and embarrassing realisation that he had been almost purring aloud at Blake’s enthusiastic penetration. It might feel marvellous, but what was he doing? Avon made it a rule to never let anyone fuck him on a first date, let alone a one-time encounter. For some reason this didn’t feel like either of those, more as if Blake had been hanging around his flat being irritating for months. 

Avon remembered something he’d read. “Charisma,” he muttered into his pillow, but the sound was drowned by Blake’s gasping climax. 

When they’d re-arranged themselves on the bed, Avon flat on his back, Blake’s hands stroking him back into hardness, Blake asked, “What did you say? Just then.”

“Charisma,” Avon told him. “Terrorists, freedom fighters, populist leaders – they tend to be charismatics, dragging people into their operations by force of personality alone.”

“Is that what you think I’m doing? I wouldn’t have thought a man like you would be susceptible to mere personality.”

“I’ve had five hours sleep in nearly four days,” Avon pointed out. “I’m not at my best.” He felt drained, almost post orgasmic, not that he’d had one yet.

“You seemed pretty good to me.” Blake squeezed his balls gently. “Close your eyes and relax. Let me finish this and then you can sleep.”

_T + 3 days 14 hours_

“Coffee.” 

Avon dragged himself out of stupor. “What?”

“I’ve made coffee. What time do you need to be back at work?”

Avon opened his eyes, glanced at the timepiece. “About an hour and a half.”

“No hurry then.” Blake, wrapped in a bath towel, was holding out the mug. Avon grabbed it, shifted himself up the bed. 

Last night… “I fell asleep.”

“Yes, you did.” Blake seemed amused. “My best efforts were entirely wasted. I could try again?” 

Avon’s genitals seemed to like that idea. His brain wasn’t quite so sure. Now that he was rested and thinking clearly, any involvement with Roj Blake seemed insanely risky. Avon’s money was out there waiting for him. All he needed to do was not make any mistakes. How could Blake be anything but a mistake?

“I just need to figure out a way to get you out of here,” he told Blake. “Then I want you to go.” 

“And what difference will having sex make to either of those things? Am I good enough in bed to stop you thinking altogether?” 

Avon was fairly sure that Blake was having just that effect, but he didn’t intend to say so. He drank the coffee, rolled off the bed and went for a long shower, during which he solved the problem of wanting sex with Blake, at least temporarily, then dressed. 

The presence of the unwanted interloper gave rise to some practical problems as well as emotional ones. Blake had been in the flat for over a day already and he couldn’t live just on coffee. “I’ll arrange for a food delivery about midday,” Avon told him. “Wait at least twenty minutes before you open the secure hatch and don’t let anyone know there’s anyone in here.”

“Thank you,” Blake said with apparent sincerity. “Have a good day.”

Avon just snorted slightly and left. 

_T + 3 days 15 hours_

Avon’s thief program was at the second level, dribbling out tiny snippets of information about his hundred decoys and everyone seemed excited. Avon calculated that it would take three or four days to produce enough information before it would start becoming be useful to the security services, where “useful” meant sending them on a great number of wild goose chases. 

His own hunter program finished running and he looked with satisfaction at the pages and pages of output identifying unauthorised deposits, then carried them all up to the board room. The total payments came to about a quarter of the missing money. The Board, suitably impressed, authorised him to liaise with some very senior Security personnel about processing the output into a form where they could use it to make arrests. This took him the rest of the day. 

By early evening most of the security forces were working on his output and the Dome’s cells were overflowing – extra arrestees were being processed in hastily closed schools and sports facilities. Avon had been certain that they wouldn’t be able to resist a printed list of names and numbers after days of uncertainty, and he had been right. Everyone seemed quite certain that Avon’s work had started to find the missing money. Other banks were begging for his program so they could find their own dubious account holders. In the end the management reluctantly let him go home again at some ungodly hour in the morning.

_T + 4 days 7 hours_

Blake was watching the vidscreen. Avon glanced at the now familiar sight of Security uniforms and reporters. “Off,” he told it. 

“Something big’s happened,” Blake said. “Was it you? Are they onto you?”

“Yes and no.” The sight of Blake was making him feel unsteady and aroused at the same time. It was oddly satisfying though to have someone he could talk to about what he’d done. “I’ve found them all the illicit money that goes floating around the banking system.”

“Ah.” Blake thought about that for a moment. “There must be a lot of that.”

“A huge amount. Bribes, backhanders, money skimmed off the top of government contracts, illegal drug and weapon sales for a start.”

“Is that who they’ve been arresting today? Anyone with money they shouldn’t have?”

“Yes.” Avon rummaged around in the fridge, sighing. Blake had put stuff away just anywhere. 

“Does that list include me?”

“Not this one,” Avon said. He’d found some fruit and a piece of cheese. That would do for now. “Wrong bank. You and your thirty-thousand credits will most likely turn up on another list tomorrow or the next day. They’ll be too low on police resources to do anything much with that one in general but they’ll probably make an exception for Roj Blake.” 

“Thank you very much. I’m not sure I want to be an exception.”

“Then you shouldn’t have been a terrorist.”

“I don’t think that I was. I’ve been reading up on the Freedom Party. We were non-violent from the start. I think they framed me.”

Avon shrugged. “Irrelevant now.” 

“Not to me. There were others- I don’t remember them now, but they must have been my friends. I think some of them might be dead.” Blake’s previous cheerfulness had dropped. He sounded bleak. 

Avon had no sympathy, he told himself. He’d got his own problems. 

“What’s your out, anyway?” Blake asked. “All this setting false trails- what good is it doing you? Why not just buy passage out on the black market and go?”

Avon couldn’t see what harm it would be to tell Blake. If the man was captured he was already doomed. 

“I’ve got a technical conference in Dome 4 in three weeks time. Someone from Jotunheim is going to offer me a job with one of the top families there. I take it, they arrange the exit documentation and I fly off Earth on a commercial flight a couple of days later, completely legit. Once I’m there I find a flat, start work, and after a month or so I use my much increased salary to take an exotic holiday, like everyone else there taking advantage of their considerably laxer border controls. As soon as I’m well outside the Federation I extract all my funds that are still held in their banking systems, give a couple of interviews to the galactic news services explaining how crap banking security systems are and settle down somewhere extraordinarily luxurious to be phenomenally rich for the rest of my life. No risking black marketers, no relying on anyone else at all.” 

“Hm.” Blake said. “Are you sure the Jotunheimers are still going to want you as a security consultant after you let millions of credits disappear from under your nose?”

Avon was rather impressed that Blake had managed to pick up on the one slight weakness in the plan so fast, but he didn’t say so. “They’ve been begging me to come and work for them for years. This won’t stop them.” He smiled, a little bitterly. “It should work to my advantage. I drop my price, just a little, and everyone will assume that I’m desperate to get out of here after this debacle.”

“You really do care about your reputation, don’t you?” Blake tugged Avon’s dressing gown a little closer round his shoulders. “Hence the galactic news. You’d hate to just disappear off the radar with everyone thinking you failed.” He smiled. “Have you a similarly brilliant plan for getting me to somewhere safe?”

“No.” Avon told him. “Nothing at all yet.” 

“Fun as this has been,” Blake said, “I’ll take my chances out there if we don’t come up with something soon. I can't stay here indefinitely. Not as things are, anyway.”

“You can't leave until I'm sure you're able to get away. I don't want you caught.”

Blake sighed. “I would like to think that's concern for my welfare, but I suppose I know better. Do I at least have an invitation to stay, then? I'm tired of feeling like a gatecrasher.”

It was an odd request in the circumstances but Avon needed the man to stay in the flat voluntarily. He could hardly tie Blake up every time he went to work. "If you like." 

"Thank you." Blake looked genuinely pleased by the meaningless gesture. "You look almost as tired as you did yesterday. Why don't you get some sleep? I'll take the sofa."

Avon felt a thoroughly irrational twinge of disappointment. It was nearly dawn, he needed sleep badly and sex with Blake would still be a mistake. He lay awake for a few minutes thinking about what another mistake with Blake might feel like and then he drifted off to sleep. 

_T + 4 days 15 hours_

He woke to a gorgeous aroma filling the flat. For a moment he just savoured it, then he rolled rapidly out of bed. If Blake was ruining his meagre allowance of decent food…

Blake grinned at him as he entered the kitchen. “Bacon,” the man said, with delight. “I haven’t had real meat for years. This really is how the other half lives.”

Avon snatched the tongs from him. “Get out of my kitchen!” The bacon wasn’t quite ruined yet, he was relieved to see. The eggs, on the other hand, were already overdone. He pulled them off the heat. “Out!” 

“Keep your voice down,” Blake reminded him. “The neighbours will be wondering who you’re shouting at. There are plates and cutlery out on the table when you’re ready.”

“I only need one plate,“ Avon told him coldly. “You can have toast after I’ve left or nothing.”

“You’re a dreadful host,” Blake said. “One piece of bacon? I promise to make it worth your while.” He raised a defensive hand as Avon lunged at him with the tongs. “I’m going!” and he backed out of the room.

Five minutes later Avon flipped a single small piece of perfectly cooked bacon onto the second plate. “Merely to stop you whingeing,” he told Blake, “so I can eat in peace.”

“Of course,” Blake agreed. “But I did make a promise, and I always try to keep my promises.” 

Avon poked crossly at the overcooked and now congealed eggs. There was certainly a very good argument that he deserved the best that B1ake could do after this. He briefly wondered what the best Blake could do might be then decided that thought really didn’t go with breakfast. 

His communicator beeped and he scowled at the message. A perfunctory enquiry about his welfare and a barely disguised order to get back to work. Since the heist, bank management seemed to have lost all respect for their technical staff. Avon had been intending to leave straight after breakfast but he was disinclined to be seen to scurry back to work when ordered to. He was an Alpha and a highly skilled specialist, not to mention currently in possession of most of the bank’s money. 

On the other hand he certainly wasn’t in a mood to sit around and make polite conversation with Blake for half the morning. He glanced over at the man. It seemed that Blake was going to be around and available indefinitely. He supposed that there was nothing for it but to take advantage…

He finished his breakfast, took a long drag of the coffee. “Bed,” he said, definitely.

Blake pushed his plate away. “I thought you’d never ask.”

_T + 5 to T +7 days_

For the next few days Avon dropped into what was almost a routine. At work his thief program slowly and with the appearance of great reluctance gave up the details of some of his decoys. Arrests were coming thick and fast now, and the disarray seemed to be going to the very top of the Federation. There was even gossip about the President resigning. Avon said nothing about the political situation, produced lists of accounts and deposits regularly, and went home every evening with an unusual amount of enthusiasm. 

In a couple of days Blake seemed to have gone from total ignorance to being remarkably well informed about the whole situation. From his console’s records Avon could tell that the man spent most of the days surfing the news channels and historic archives as well as several rather subversive sites that officially didn’t exist. Avon wasn’t entirely surprised that Blake had become obsessed by his lost memories but he thought the interest in what might be left of the Freedom Party was pointless and unwise.

“Can they use the console to trace any of this back to you?” Blake had demanded.

“Of course not” 

“Well then. I can’t see that it’s any of your business what I look at.”

So much for gratitude for his advice. Blake, was to a certain extent, right; if he wanted to waste his time hunting after a long destroyed conspiracy that was his affair. Avon continued to monitor the console usage but he kept his opinions to himself. Mostly. 

He spent most of his free time having sex. It passed the time until his escape, he told himself; stopped Blake chattering at him all the time; kept a bit of the tension at bay; helped him sleep without medication. Nothing more important than that. He didn’t ask how Blake felt about it and the man volunteered a great deal of enthusiasm but thankfully no personal feelings. It would be over soon enough, anyway, as the countdown to his conference and the next step to freedom ticked steadily onwards. 

_T+8 days_

“What happened?” Blake had obviously been waiting for Avon; he appeared as soon as the door was shut. “Something’s gone wrong, hasn’t it? The news broadcasts were talking about all the senior people being released again. Do we need to run?”

“No.” Avon took off his coat and shoes. “I could do with a coffee. The traffic was dreadful.”

Blake snorted. “I’ll make your coffee but I still need some answers.”

Avon kept him waiting until the drink was in his hand and he was sprawled out on the sofa. That was usually the trigger for Blake to come and join him but for once sex clearly wasn’t on the man’s mind. The news coverage must have been seriously unnerving.

“The investigation has been ‘refocused’.” Avon finally said. “Some men in black with rather large guns turned up today with a list of non-suspects- people to be left strictly alone by the investigation. The Federation administration is finally acting to protect its own.”

Blake paced, thinking. Avon watched him move and tried not to show his impatience. He’d had a long and demanding day and he’d rather do sex right now than explanations. 

“Could you get me on that list?” Blake asked.

“Not a chance. Your name would stand out like a sore thumb.” Avon put down his coffee. " I have however put my name on it, somewhere near the middle. That should stop any unexpected searches of this place.” 

“So where does the investigation go now?” 

Avon flashed a smile . “We’ve been advised, rather firmly, that a certain Roj Blake is exactly the sort of suspect that the Administration thinks we ought to be investigating. So I imagine that’s what we’ll do.” 

“That’s not funny,” Blake told him. “My friends, my colleagues- they’ll all be interrogated.”

“Yes,” Avon agreed. “Fortunately this is currently the highest priority investigation on Earth, which means that they’ll be interrogated by people competent enough to figure out that they know absolutely nothing useful. The chances are good that if you keep off the radar they’ll all be released again.” 

“You’re very blasé about all the misery you’re causing other people.” 

“That from a terrorist? Nobody has died as a result of my actions.” Avon pointed out.

“No-one except you has gained from them either. Your thievery is hardly comparable to… Never mind.” Blake sighed. “Clearly there’s no point whatsoever in lecturing you about ethics. I just hope you’re right about my friends. You’ll have to make your own dinner. I’ve had too much on my mind to play housekeeper for you today.”

By the time they’d both eaten Blake seemed to have recovered his normal good humour and there was no more cant about morals. Avon was relieved; once his partners started to talk about being better than him it always signalled the rapid end of the relationship. One of the more satisfying things about Blake’s company had been his lack of innocence; it seemed there was nothing like a conviction for terrorism to keep people from spouting too much nonsense about who was right or wrong.

_T+9 to T+ 19_

The next ten days were almost restful. The investigation into Blake revealed no more accounts and no-one was able to break the security around the source of the thirty thousand credits. Avon did a bit of very careful sniffing around and found out that most of Blake’s friends had indeed been released, some of them in a rather rough state. He didn’t pass on that last snippet to Blake- it wasn’t as if the man could do anything to help them, after all. 

Avon’s colleagues and most of the security personnel were by now certain that the real culprit must be on the exclusion list but the men with guns were still around and no-one dared breach their instructions so the heart rather went out of the investigation. By day 19 no-one at the bank was really working on the theft at all, though the enquiry remained officially open.

On the domestic front the only event that really stood out among the evenings of hot sex and passable cooking was when Blake, apparently grown tired of Avon’s surveillance, worked out how to blank the console’s history. On discovering this Avon gave some thought to a response. When he finally walked into the kitchen Blake glanced at the machine in his hand then at his face. 

“Yes?” 

“You’re not a complete idiot,” Avon told him. “You know how far you’ve been compromised by being here. If they catch you now they’ll treat you as full accessory to my crime and that means a prison planet for the rest of your life at best, full mindwipe or execution at worst.”

Blake frowned at him, “I do know that, yes. But thanks for reminding me. So?”

“So I trust that your instincts for self preservation have improved a great deal since you blundered into here. Be very careful.” He dropped the console on the side. “How long until dinner?”

Blake gave him that full-on smile that always felt to Avon like being hit over the head with something both brutally hard and utterly desirable. “Sometimes you still manage to surprise me, Avon. I would say that we’ve got at least half an hour. Why don’t I clear this stuff off the kitchen table and then I’ll see if I can surprise you in return?”

It turned out that Blake was still capable of surprising Avon, which after everything they’d already tried was a surprise in itself. By the time they abandoned the kitchen table (and the ruined dinner) for the comfort of the bed Avon had mostly stopped his quiet fretting about losing oversight on the console. He wasn’t completely foolhardy; he had added a few restrictions to the console before he handed it back. He reckoned it would take Blake at least four days to notice them, and a lot longer to figure a way past. Let the man think he’d got full control over it for the couple of days that remained, especially if the idea made him this obliging in return.

_T + 20 days_

Avon’s last day at work was as dull as he could possibly have hoped for. The evening was considerably less so; they finally settled the argument they’d been having about the feasibility of simultaneous orgasm during penetrative sex. Blake had won, which was disappointing, but at least the way in which Avon had lost had been particularly enjoyable. 

He was still lying flat out on his back, naked on the bed and wearing the blindfold that Blake had insisted would help him focus better. He didn’t feel like moving. 

“I need to pack,” he said moreorless to himself. 

“Your conference?”

“I fly out tomorrow.” He paused. “I won’t be coming back here afterwards.”

“And me?” Blake asked.

Avon had been thinking about this. He’d compressed his schedule as much as he could, given the risk of Blake’s discovery. “You stay here. It will take me a week to get to Jotunheim, another two weeks until I’m able to leave. Ten more days to get far enough out of the Federation to be safe. Then I’ll talk to the media, give them the list of decoys. In just over a month you’ll be exonerated. Go straight to a legal advisor – I’ll leave some names of people who ought to be reliable. Don’t let anyone pick you up on the way and don’t, whatever you do, let anyone including your legal people know where you’ve been staying.” 

The silence on the other side of the blindfold was oddly empty. “Are you still there?”

“Yes.”

“Right. I’ll leave you enough credit chits.”

“I don’t need your money.” Blake’s voice was flat.

“Of course you do. It could be weeks before they unfreeze your bank account. What do you think you’re going to live on- fresh air? You’ll need to pay for legal advice as well.”

A pause. “All right. I do need your money. I’ll repay it.”

“Don’t bother. I’ll have plenty, remember?”

“How could I forget? I said I’d repay it and I will.”

Avon was getting tired of the man’s pointless stubbornness. “If you insist on making life hard for yourself, go ahead. It won’t make any difference to me. ” 

“That much is obvious.” 

Avon tugged the blindfold off. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What do you think will happen after your great revelation? To me, I mean, because clearly you’ve got your own future all mapped out just fine.”

Avon shifted up the bed. “I imagine you’ll go back to whatever it was you did before. Systems engineering, wasn’t it?”

“You think that’s who I am? Roj Blake, just another obedient cog in the great machine that is the Federation?” 

Avon frowned at him. Blake seemed to be angry. “By all means go back to blowing things up, if you prefer. It just seems a little ungrateful to get yourself mindwiped again after the trouble I’m going to in order to keep you safe.” 

“Trouble?” Blake was off the bed, glaring down at him. “What trouble? You swan off halfway across the galaxy, leaving me locked in this horrible flat for a month hoping that you’ll remember to mention to someone at some point that I was innocent. Then I’ll have the whole of the Federation security services on my back anyway because obviously they aren’t going to let me go back to my nice safe job and my quiet life on the say so of a fugitive criminal.”

He took a deep breath. “And whatever happens I won’t ever see you again, because they aren’t going to let me leave Earth, let alone the Federation, and it’s not like you’re going to come back. So go and bloody pack, then, but don’t pretend you’re doing any of this for my benefit or that this will work out fine. Your prank with my bank account has ruined my life and nothing you can do from now on will make any difference to that.”

Avon was startled. Despite their frequent disagreements about trivia, he’d thought that he and Blake were getting on pretty well in the circumstances. As well as he got on with anybody, anyway. He’d even found that he hadn’t much liked thinking about the parting of the ways, though obviously it had to come. It was unreasonable of Blake to suddenly come out with this blame and resentment. Didn’t he know this was a difficult enough time for Avon without making things harder? Without replying he climbed out of bed and started to pack.

About an hour later Avon came into the sitting room. Blake was lying on the sofa tapping something into the console.

“I need to pack that,” Avon pointed out,

“Go to hell,” Blake said without looking up from the screen.

Avon considered reclaiming his property by force. Then he considered just walking out. Instead he sat down in the armchair opposite Blake. 

Blake looked tired and unhappy. Avon imagined he probably did too. 

“What are you doing?” he asked, keeping his voice deliberately non confrontational.

“Looking for a way out.” Blake stopped typing and stabbed at a couple of buttons with considerably more force than necessary. “And not finding one.” He dropped the console on the floor and lay back with his eyes closed.

“What do you want to happen?” Avon asked. 

Blake looked across at him, as if the question was unexpected. “I want to come with you.”

Avon started shaking his head. “Impossible. You wouldn’t get as far as the spaceport, let alone on a flight.”

“I know,” Blake told him. “I didn’t say it was possible. I said it was what I wanted.” 

“Oh.” Avon thought about that briefly. “If it were possible, I suppose I wouldn’t necessarily object.”

Blake laughed, without a great deal of joy in the sound. “That’s something, anyway. Not that it makes much difference at this point.” 

Avon wasn’t sure. The more he thought about it, the more he could see very definite advantages to having Blake along. He had, after all, gone to a great deal of trouble to put himself in a position where he could have absolutely everything he wanted. If his almost unlimited wealth couldn’t get him a companion of his choice it felt like failing at the first hurdle, and he had no intention of failing at all.

It would require more money than he currently had available, which meant accessing a couple of his hidden accounts before he left Earth. That was a risk, but he’d put a handful of his aliases into the “no suspects” list as well, so it was less of a risk than it might have been. 

“I can get you out,” he told Blake. “If you trust me.”

“Of course I trust you,” Blake said. “Why do you think I stayed?”

“I thought you didn’t have a choice.” 

“I’ve always had choices,” Blake said. “Not all good ones, but choices. Spending three weeks in your flat, and your bed, was definitely not something I did accidentally.”

Avon hadn’t thought of it in those terms. “Very well. The conference lasts three days. I’ll come back on the fourth and we’ll leave together.”

“How?”

Details. “The way rich people do everything. I’ll throw money at the problem until it goes away. Make me some coffee while I’ll work out what I need.” 

Blake shook his head. “How about both of us work out what we need instead? You’re not the only supercriminal in this flat, you know.”

“I’m the only one who hasn’t got caught,” Avon said. “I suppose I’ll have to make the coffee, then. And then we’ll sit down and make a long list of things for you to do while I’m off enjoying myself”

_T + 21 days to T + 23 days_

The conference was not fun. Everyone knew it was Avon’s employers who had lost a fortune on his watch. It turned out that quite a lot of people in the financial security industry didn’t like him very much, and there was a great deal more schadenfreude than there was sympathy. He knew that he’d be vindicated soon enough and in a manner far more spectacular than any of them could possible imagine but for now he had to take the snide jokes and the pointed comments and he didn’t enjoy it.

It didn’t help that in a mere three weeks he seemed to have lost the knack of sleeping on his own. The bed seemed wide and cold, his hotel room more than usually barren. He could have had company- it was a conference, sleeping around was pretty much expected - but he didn’t want any of them, so he lay awake and tried to imagine where Blake might be up to with the list of tasks. Avon hadn’t ever deliberately put his life in someone else’s hands before. It wasn’t a comfortable feeling. Knowing that it would have been much worse with anyone else but Blake wasn’t a great consolation. 

At the back of his mind was the knowledge that he could still revert to the original, foolproof plan. All he’d have to do was jettison Blake…. Avon flung the covers back irritably and got himself a glass of water. Why did it have to be so chilly in the room? It was another couple of hours before he finally got to sleep.

The next day he signed a contract with the Giselles of Jotunheim for about ten per cent less than he’d previously been holding out for and a second set of exit documents for his partner. Avon indicated delicately that he was keen to get off Earth as soon as possible, just in case the security services decided to turn on the bank staff in the absence of the real culprit. The documents and tickets would be couriered to him the day after his return home. 

_T + 24 days_

Avon opened the door to his flat and was hit by a heavy body; Blake, apparently pleased to see him. 

“I wasn’t sure you’d come back,” Blake murmured, dragging him towards the bedroom.

“I thought you trusted me?”

“I do, but I’ve been wrong before. Everything’s arranged for tomorrow, no problems. How did your side go?”

“All sorted. We’re booked to leave tomorrow evening.” 

_T + 25 days_

Blake scowled at Avon across the unconscious body. “Was that necessary?” 

“Completely. He’ll wake up in forty eight hours.” Probably. The drugs were slightly risky, but the make-up artist had been paid danger money. “Then he’ll either go to the police and risk getting arrested as an accessory to your escape, or if he’s got any sense he’ll look at his credit chits and decide to keep quiet. Either way, we’ll be out of reach by then.”

He unboxed the ID machine from its case. That had cost Blake a great deal more on the black market than the man’s change of face. Half an hour’s work and Blake had a slightly battered ID card with his new appearance and personal details to match the exit documents delivered earlier. 

Blake frowned over the liner tickets. “I don’t much like the idea of being trapped on this ship for a week. If they come after us there’s nowhere to run.”

“That’s why we’re not boarding the liner. There’s a space yacht called Hegira docked three berths further on with clearance to undock an hour before the Jotunheim ship. She’s not fast and she’s got no armaments to speak of but the crew are experts at running dark. Once we’re undocked and out in space we won’t be traceable. It will be a slow trip out to neutral territory but hopefully a safe one.” 

“Who do the crew think we are?” Blake sounded cautious.

“People with money. They don’t make a habit of asking questions. If they start I have enough evidence of their rather irregular activities to shut them up rather quickly. And this.” He flicked his jacket open to show a gun. 

“How are you going to get that through security?”

“Legitimately. On Jotunheim I’m entitled to a weapon for self defence and the ship they think we’re boarding is Jotunheim property. Security will want to know where I bought it, and I’ll tell them - that’s all they’ll be interested in.”

Blake nodded. Avon didn’t much like his new appearance. It was too tight, too cold and calculating, but it was sufficiently different to get him past security. 

“It will mostly wash off, “Blake said, apparently reading his thoughts. “Or grow back. When do we leave?”

“Now.” 

Everything went like clockwork. Things, Avon was delighted to confirm, did when you had a great deal of money. The yacht was small but comfortable, the two-person crew cheerful about a profitable few weeks’ work without the risks that smuggling entailed. If his former or prospective employers missed Avon it certainly didn’t make the interstellar news. It seemed no-one had yet make the link between his disappearance and that of the banks’ money. 

Blake started to revert to his usual appearance about halfway through the trip. Avon was pretty sure that his companion been recognised by the crew, but he had set up surreptitious monitors for the various communication devices on board and nobody used them. He and Blake held a small ceremony on passing over the Federation’s official border with the rest of the galaxy. It involved a great deal of alcohol in bed. They disembarked a week later in a zone well outside the Federation’s influence.

_T + 47 days_

“Now what?” Blake said. He was lying in the long vegetation, looking up at the two suns. He hadn’t ever stepped on a planet other than Earth before, at least not, he told Avon, that he remembered. 

“Giving interviews,” Avon said. “House hunting, if you like this planet. If not, we’ll buy a better one. Sorting out my investments. I think I’d like to learn to pilot at some point. And ride a horse - have you ever met a horse? We’ll need staff - cooks, butlers, tailors, horse people, that sort of thing. There are bound to be a lot of social engagements. Maybe we ought to get married.”

Blake sat up abruptly. “Just one moment, Kerr Avon – I didn’t come all this way to be your trophy husband and manage the servants!” 

“Well, what do you want to do?” 

“I want to fight the Federation.”

Avon snorted disbelief. “Because that worked out so well for you last time. Why on earth would you want to do that when we can live here in comfort and peace?” 

“So we’re out – that doesn’t change what the Federation is doing to everyone else. They took my life, Avon. They took my memories. They killed people for following me. No amount of caviare, champagne and horse riding is going to make me whole again and you can be damn sure that a glossy society wedding won’t do it.”

Avon bridled. There had been no need to reject his proposal in quite such harsh terms. “And just how are you going to fight them? You don’t have any resources. Even the clothes you’re wearing were bought with my money.”

“Your money?” Blake had scrambled to his feet. “Have you forgotten already that you’re a thief? And that the reason I have nothing is that you decided I’d make a handy sacrificial lamb to throw to the wolves while you sauntered off with the proceeds of your crime. I could have been killed or mindwiped or sent to a prison planet as a direct result of your little game.”

That wasn’t fair. “I didn’t know you then,” Avon pointed out. 

“And that makes it all right, does it?”

“If I spent all my time worrying about protecting complete strangers I’d never have stolen the money.”

Blake sighed. “Whereas protecting strangers strikes me as one of the few really worthwhile things that I could be doing. I’m sorry, Avon, if this isn’t how you wanted things to go but I can’t marry you and I can’t live off your money. I’ll find some work, earn enough to get back inside the Federation border and find one of the rebel groups to join up with. The Freedom Party can’t have been completely forgotten.”

Avon stared at him. He’d wondered occasionally what would happen in the unlikely event that he tired of Blake but he hadn’t for one moment thought that Blake might leave him. Certainly not this soon. 

For a Cause, of all things, too. Once a rebel, always a rebel, it seemed. Avon lay back again, reluctantly pushed aside the dream of luxurious country estates. He’d have grown bored soon enough, anyway. Maybe. It would have been nice to have a chance to find out. 

“We’ll need a ship.”

“Sorry?” Blake said.

“A very fast ship, well armed. You don’t want to waste your time sitting in a gravity well blowing up the occasional factory. Real revolutions don’t start that way. Recruiting a crew might be tricky. No hiding the fact that it’s going to be dangerous but some people like that sort of thing. ”

Blake looked down at him. “You’ll help?”

“I’m not sure that “help” is quite the way I’d put it. Underwrite. I’ll expect a return on the investment eventually – when you become President of the Federation, if not before.”

“You’ll buy me a ship?”

“Us a ship. I’ll need to go along to keep an eye on my investment. God knows what sort of mess you could get into with a heavily armed ship if I wasn’t there.”

“What about your terribly decadent retirement plans?” Blake looked half way between laughter and bemusement.

“She’s going to be a terribly decadent ship. I don’t intend to rough it.”

“Ah yes, of course.” Blake was laughing now. “I still won’t marry you.”

Avon quelled a little disappointment. “Well, that’s probably for the best. I wouldn’t want you contesting ownership of my ship in the divorce. I’m very fond of her.”

“I can see how you could get attached to a non-existent ship in twenty seconds, yes. You’re so softhearted.” Blake dropped down to lie beside him. “I don’t think I want to be President of the Federation though.”

“Fine. I’ll do it.”

“Unscrupulous criminal masterminds shouldn’t be allowed to take high office. I’ll make sure it’s in the new constitution.”

“Subverting the political process to suit your own prejudices? Corruption starts right at the beginning.” 

“We’ll make an end to corruption.” Blake’s voice had turned serious. “With a ship we’ll achieve something, something lasting. We’ll lead a movement that overthrows the Federation and puts a true democracy in its place.”

Avon didn’t much care about democracies, true or otherwise, and he wasn’t at all convinced that taking on the Federation would lead to anything except a rapid death. It didn’t seem entirely fair. He’d finally achieved the fame and fortune that he’d always wanted and he ought to be able to enjoy it in safety, comfort, and for a very long time. 

But when Blake kissed him he knew he’d buy the damn ship and risk his neck all the same. All this for a man he’d known for barely six weeks and who wouldn’t even marry him, a man who had been prepared to walk out on him a few minutes ago for the sake of a hopeless cause. 

Bloody charismatics. Nothing to be done but run with it for now. He’d never told Blake precisely how much he’d taken – a natural caution that now seemed wise. If things didn’t work out, well, he wouldn’t have the wealth he’d originally planned but he’d have enough kept secret and outside the grasp of Blake’s revolutionaries to let him walk away. Avon tried to stop worrying about how much of a dent a really fast, armed ship would put in his finances and wrapped his arms around his own crazy fanatic. For the moment at least this was as much like love as he’d ever imagined feeling. Maybe even more.


End file.
